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Privatizing the Right to Fish: Challenges to Livelihood and Community in Kodiak, Alaska

Privatizing the Right to Fish: Challenges to Livelihood and Community in Kodiak, Alaska. Courtney Carothers School of Fisheries & Ocean Sciences University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Marine Science Symposium, January 2009. Dissertation Research Overview.

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Privatizing the Right to Fish: Challenges to Livelihood and Community in Kodiak, Alaska

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  1. Privatizing the Right to Fish: Challenges to Livelihood and Community in Kodiak, Alaska Courtney CarothersSchool of Fisheries & Ocean SciencesUniversity of Alaska FairbanksAlaska Marine Science Symposium, January 2009

  2. Dissertation Research Overview • Privatization of Fishing Rights Symbolic & Material Transformations • Discourses of privatization • Loss of fishing rights in Alaska villages • Lived realities in Alutiiqfishing communities • Possibilities for redistribution of rights

  3. Dissertation Research Overview • Privatization of Fishing Rights Symbolic & Material Transformations • Discourses of privatization • Loss of fishing rights in Alaska villages • Lived realities in Alutiiqfishing communities • Possibilities for redistribution of rights

  4. I. Discourses of Privatization • Framing of fisheries access privatization is key to understanding debate & impacts Catch Shares Revive FisheriesScience study confirms that this innovative approach is the best way to manage and restore fisheriesEnvironmental Defense Fund 2008

  5. II. Loss of Fishing Rights in Villages • Why do small coastal communities in GOA disproportionately lose fishing rights? (1,000s)

  6. Halibut IFQ holder survey • Sample buyers, sellers, & original quota holders • 14% of pop (n = 1,100); 46% response rate • 50% of respondents from small, remote fishing villages • How do community & demographic variables affect: • Buying and selling patterns • Opinions of privatized access programs

  7. Logit Analysis • Relationship between individual attributes and buying and selling patterns? • Attributes: • Age • Income • Education • Ethnicity • Residency in small, remote fishing community • Fishing income dependence

  8. Logit Analysis • Model the probability that an individual is a seller (not a buyer) • Three attributes influence Pr[sell] • Age • The older an individual is the more likely s/he is to sell. • Ethnicity • Alaska Native quota holders more likely to sell. • Income • The lower an individual’s income is the more likely s/he is to sell.

  9. Likert Scale Composite • Alaska Native respondents show least support for privatization • Respondents who do not identify their community as “fishing dependent” show the most support.

  10. III. Lived Realities in Alutiiq Villages • What factors explain trends of loss of fishing rights? • How are these changes experienced locally?

  11. Ethnographic Research • 15 months (2005-2006) • Larsen Bay, Old Harbor, and Ouzinkie • >150 interviews • 71 household surveys • Participant observation • Social network analysis

  12. Larsen Bay ○ Ouzinkie • 90 people • 70% Alaska Native • 190 people • 88% Alaska Native ○ ○ Old Harbor • 200 people • 89% Alaska Native

  13. Dramatic Decrease in Fishing Participation

  14. Why this decrease? • “It all started with the permit” • Cannery period (1880s to 1960s) • Flexible, informal commercial fishing relationships • Men ran cannery boats; women worked in canneries • System of wages and credit • Labor mobility – crew transition to skipper to owner • Maintenance economy: “getting through the winter”; “not getting ahead of your neighbors”

  15. Privatizing the Right to Fish • Access privatization (1970s – present) • Right to fish individualized and commodified • Initial allocation of rights usually to boat owners • Subsequent allocation by market ($$) • Economic & social disconnect with cannery period “Before all this Ouzinkie was a fishing community, free enterprise…It was family fishing. (Permits) eliminated all that. (Before) you didn't have to own anything. It worked as a bartering system. You work for the cannery and they took care of you.”

  16. Privatizing the Right to Fish • Kin-based fishing not rewarded • Capital investment over labor investment • Labor mobility restricted “With limited entry, most of the young people didn't want to be crewmembers their whole lives – they got out of fishing. (It would have) cost them $200,000 to get into the fishery.” • Right to fish become alienable disproportionate rate of sale

  17. Disproportionate Rate of Sale • Higher discount rate (Langdon 1980) • Current cash flow more important than future earning potential • High-value capital asset detrimental • Limited access to collateral, financial institutions, knowledge of programs • IRS repossession • Other factors • Low wild salmon prices • Exxon Valdez oil spill

  18. Social Change • Values • Individualism, competition • Status • Labor/class hierarchies • Wealth disparities • “Business style” fishermen gain political power • “Lifestyle fishermen” subordinated (Mason 1993) • Economy • Maintenance to accumulation

  19. Social Change • The “Lost” Generation “When I was young, I grew up knowing that I’d be a fisherman and I knew one day I’d be a boat owner... Guys growing up today don’t know that; there’s no reason to think they can be boat owners – most of them can’t be.” Elder fisherman in Ouzinkie

  20. Social Change • Loss of fishing rights not just income • Loss of identity, meaningful lifestyle, connection to place • New stratification altered community dynamics • Linking of loss of fisheries to increasing social problems • 50% decrease in village populations • Impact on subsistence economy

  21. IV. Redistribution of Rights • Community-based rights • Community Quota Entity Program • Aboriginal claim to fish • Social movements • Collective planning • Kodiak Island Rural Regional Leadership Forum • “Commercial fishing is part of our future” • Economic diversification

  22. Summary • Complex relationships b/tpeople, places, & resources • Privatization is remaking these relationships • Privatization constrains fishing livelihoods and connection to place • While effects not entirely predictable, tend to reinforce historical inequities based on class & ethnicity • Symbolic/ideological struggle over language, values, and assumptions

  23. Acknowledgements • Dissertation Committee: • Eric Alden Smith (University of Washington) • Dave Fluharty (UW) • Ben Fitzhugh (UW) • Jennifer Sepez (NOAA Fisheries) • Funding Agencies • National Science Foundation • Wenner-GrenFoundation for Anthropological Research • Washington Sea Grant Program • Morris K. Udall Foundation

  24. Quyanaasinaq • The people of the Kodiak Archipelago • Tribal Councils of Larsen Bay, Old Harbor and Ouzinkie • Mary Haakanson, Phyllis Clough, Mary Barb Christiansen, the Fields, Herman Squartsoff, Angeline Campfield, Jack Wick, Gwen Christiansen, RJ Zeedar

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